Chapter 211 (2/2)

“I’ve heard people say that a thumb-sized bottle of perfume could be sold for five gold royals in King’s City,” Carter scratched his head, “If this is the case, shouldn’t manufacturing the sugarcane perfume bring a huge income to the town?”

“Five gold royals?” Roland got startled; he had never considered this point. Recalling the previous life in the palace, the 4th Prince had never cared about the price of commodities, it was even more the case with perfume, something with which he had less contact ─only women would prefer a trinket that only delivered a nice fragrance.

His initial motivation to make perfume was his wish for fine perfumed soap. Otherwise, by only having running water and no bathroom soap, it felt like there was something that was missing. Ah, the sensation of having his whole body covered with bubbles.

If a small bottle of perfume could be sold for several gold royals, it was indeed a pretty good business idea. Unlike coated mirrors, the raw material of sugar cane and flowers were much cheaper than crystal glass was.

Thinking it through, Roland laughed, “This idea isn’t bad, I will consider it.”

“His Royal Highness, the… sugar cane, can I take one out of the castle with me?” asked the Knight with a look full of expectation.

“It won’t hurt,” hearing him speak in this manner, Roland could immediately guessed as to what he wanted to do with it. After all, this was the Western Border, unlike the Port of Clearwater, the crops of the Fjord’s relatively rare here. So it was a good choice as a gift when asking a lady from the West out, “They are growing on a wall in the backyard, just pick some for yourself.”

“Thank you, Your Highness!” Carter saluted.

Afterward, Roland called for Barov – still calling him assistant minister wasn’t quite appropriate anymore. As City Hall’s number one figure, he was already regarded as Border Town’s Premier Minister.

After Barov took his place, Roland roughly described the perfume business plan, “Do you think this could be something we can earn large sums of gold with?”

He did not reply immediately, but later asked with wide open eyes, “Your Highness, are you sure that perfume is produced out of the sweet crops?”

“Don’t you also use the perfumed soap? The reason for it fragrance is that I had mixed the perfume inside,” Roland spread his hands out, “It is indeed true that these raw materials are of little value. But I never knew that the perfume in King’s City was so expensive until Carter brought it up.”

“Far more than that, your Highness!” Barov said excitedly, “Perfume is King’s City Alchemist Workshop’s top-secret product, every year there are approximately one thousand bottles, only a small part of it is sold in King’s City. The rest is sold to the others cities in Graycastle, there they can raise the price by twenty to thirty percent, but in case they sell it to the Fjords or other Kingdoms, the price would almost be doubled. To prevent the merchants from making a profit out of the difference in prices, the association not only firmly controls the perfume prices in other places; they even assign all the merchants by themselves. So in case you can could produce perfume, even if you only sold it to Redwater City or Fallen Dragon Ridge, you would definitely obtain a generous payback.”

“So, that’s how it was.”

Your twenty years serving as an assistant of the Finance Minister wasn’t for nothing, Roland thought, regarding the commodity prices and current market situation, Barov is indeed magnificent. With this information, Roland formed a preliminary plan in his mind.

There were many ways to make perfume, the simplest method was to mash the petals or herbs with unique flavors and let them soak inside alcohol, letting the alcohol dissolve the plants, and leaving an aromatic oil remaining. Lastly, the remaining remnants will be filtered out and diluted with water.

The alcohol came from the juice of the sugar cane; while for the aromatic oil they could use roses, or the more commonly rosemary and vanilla. However, since it was necessary to achieve mass production, the best choice would be to let Leaves use her magic to transform a plant to directly secreting this fragrant oil.

In addition to perfume, the industry could also produce white sugar and liquor. Also, a lot of consumables would be needed, and their profit would be less than what was gained from the perfume, but if sold to the town’s people at a low price, it would enrich their diet, which could be regarded as a significant step forward for the people’s welfare.

Roland’s main reason for the slow development of the light industry was due to the shortage of a workforce, and the difficult to earn high profits with a small-scale production of daily necessities. Because of this, a limited population investing into heavy industry production, would be the most cost-effective approach.

Since the manufacture of perfume was incredibly profitable, maybe he could take advantage of this opportunity to make up for the shortcoming in environment.